According to Miro Copic, a marketing professor at San Diego State University who recently crunched the numbers, this year’s SDCC is expected to have a whopping $150 million in economic impact on the region, representing an injection of at least $80 million in direct spending.

“Comic Con is very important to San Diego,” Copic told CNBC in an email, adding that it was also the largest convention of the year for the city. On average, its 130,000 attendees will spend over $600 per person, Copic’s data shows.

San Diego plays host to 34 million visitors annually, according figures from to the city’s tourism bureau, pulling in more than $700 million in state and local tax revenue. Last year, San Diego’s Convention Center saw about 553,000 individuals total—meaning that SDCC makes up more than a quarter of the year’s traffic by itself.

That’s why the convention center gives Comic-Con cut-rate rents, and why the City is trying to expand the convention center, which isn’t the largest in the state (Anaheim claims that crown, and the Vegas boasts three of the top ten centers),

The report states that CCI brings in more attendees than the next three events combined.

Perhaps the best perk of working on a NASA mission is getting the official stitched mission patch. Nearly every project at the space agency produces its own unique emblem that is adorned by astronauts and engineers alike, serving as a reminder of the hard work put into each assignment. Even the National Laboratory on the International Space Station, which is overseen by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), gets its own unique mission patch year to year.

Those of us who follow space AND comics know this isn’t the first… That honor belongs to Snoopy and Charlie Brown of Apollo 10 (which had a normal patch), and a Silver Snoopy is a coveted award at NASA. The Mars Spirit rover sports a mission patch featuring Marvin the Martian, while the Opportunity rover’s patch features Duck Dodgers! (…and Star Trek designer Michael Okuda has designed many patches for the Space Shuttle.)

Alcaraz was one of several Chicano artists and supporters who talked about the growing Latin art scene in San Diego.

Born and raised in Lemon Grove, Alcaraz has gained fame with his nationalluy syndicated cartoon strip, “La Cucaracha,” which appears daily in the San Diego Union-Tribune. And this past year, he was a writer and producer of “Bordertown,” an animated series on the Fox network that was cancelled after its first season.

The Killing Joke was already one of the most controversial stories created in comics. In the graphic novel, the Joker paralyzes Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, and shows nude pictures of the crippled woman to her father, Commissioner Gordon. Now, an animated movie based on that iconic storyline, which screened at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday night, has sparked another debate by altering the relationship between Batman and Batgirl.

Here’s the graph of rising action:

female superhero is brutally used as a plot device in the original graphic novel

animated feature is announced

the film is Rated R

“develop” the character with a questionable scene

Me… I’m waiting for the porn parody, for the definitive edition.

Hmm… no Google News links to the Eisner Awards when I search “San Diego” “comic-con”…

Okay… question… “Will Eisner Comic Book Industry Awards” (or is it “Comic Industry”? “Comics Industry”? Can’t find the rules to verify)… that means little notice of comic strips. So… the Hall of Fame… is Rube Goldberg influential to comic books? Okay… unlike the judges’ choices, he was voted in by the electorate. Interesting that three of the four voter’s choices are noted for comic strips and not comic books. If the rules have changed to allow comic strip creators equality with comic book creators, then there will have to be an increase in the number of inductees, because I can name two other Pulitzer winners who are more influential than Goldberg, not to mention the many Reuben Award winners. But I’m not on that committee…

M-A-C pulled out ALL the stops as they gave fans a sneak peek at their upcoming M-A-C Star Trek makeup collection. The collection of lipsticks, powders, eye shadows, nail lacquer, eye liner, lash and brushes is inspired by Star Trek and, more specifically, Deanna Troi, Uhura, Seven of Nine and the Orion Girl, Vina.

I’ve been writing for The Beat since July of 2010.
I’ve been reading comics since 1974, collecting since 1984, and spreading the graphic novel gospel since 1994.
I’m a bookseller, a librarian, an amateur scholar, a cool uncle, and a comics evangelist.
Ask me anything!